Key Consideration When Choosing a Foreign Web Hosting

Internet is a vast network with no geographical boundary. Any
local websites can sell their products or services to any
foreign web visitors. Likewise, any local web visitors can purchase the
desired goods from foreign websites. In general, web visitors are not
interested on the physical location of a website. They are interested only
on the products, services or information provided by the websites as well
as the server connection speed. As long as that website is providing good
content and information with acceptable server connection speed, most of the
web visitors will continue to visit that website. However, as an owner of a website,
you will have to consider various key aspects when deciding upon a foreign web
hosting provider.

Web Hosting Price

Overall, foreign web hosting providers offer
very competitive hosting price in comparison to local web hosting
providers. Why? This is achieved through economic of scale. Foreign web
hosting providers acquire hundred thousands of customers in order to reduce the average
operating costs. Then, those cost savings can be passed on to customers by
lowering the monthly hosting price.
In contrast, the number of web hosting customers is much lower in the
local web hosting industry. As a result, local web hosting companies
cannot gain from the advantages of 'economic of scale'. Inevitably, they
can't compete with foreign web hosting providers based on price.

In fact, the hosting price difference between
local and foreign web hosting providers sometimes can be up to three or four times in some
countries. For example, the monthly cost for a standard hosting plan by
Lunarpages (an America web hosting provider) is only US$6.95. But a similar hosting plan offered by local web
hosting provider in Hong Kong could be as high as US$30 per month.

If you just starting out on your Internet business and hope to keep your website operating
cost down, then the cheaper hosting cost provided by foreign web hosting providers could be
a good option.

Web Server Location

If you plan to host your website with foreign web hosting
provider, obviously, your website will be hosted on the web server located
at the foreign country. Will these websites, hosted on foreign web server,
slower in response? In theory, local websites have better response when
visited by local web visitors. But connection bandwidth from country to
country has been improving over the years. To a large extend, a local web
visitor when visiting foreign websites will not be able to tell the difference in
accessing speed. If you have visited foreign websites such as Yahoo! or
Microsoft (if you are not living in US), did you find the response slower
on these websites? Likewise, the current website 'Cheap Web Hosting Services Review' that you are
reading now is hosted on Lunarpages, a US web hosting provider, did you find any difference
compare to any local websites? Most likely, not!

In fact, the accessing speed of a website affected by many
aspects, including:

Data Center IP backbone
Obviously, it is better to have websites hosted on data center that is connected to the
Internet using highest performing IP backbone. Internet backbone
connection line at data center comes in various speed:

Generally, the Internet backbone for foreign web hosting providers are
high in order to meet the demand of the huge number of websites they are
servicing. For example,
the data center of IPOWER is using OC48 and OC192 Internet
backbone to ensure all the websites can be accessed at the highest
connection speed.

Number of websites on a web server
In shared hosting, many websites are sharing a same physical web
server. Depending on the server hardware resources and speed, a
physical web server can hosts few hundreds to even thousands of
different websites at one time. If your website is hosted on such
heavy loaded web server, inevitably, the response will be slow. Some
web hosting resellers who wanted to maximize profits would overload a
web server with too many websites. As a result, those websites will
always experience slow response. In order to avoid this kind of
problems, you should only look for reputable web hosting providers
that always strive to ensure good server response.

Web Hosting Payment Methods

In general, local web hosting providers accept various payment methods, including: check payment, inter-bank money transfer and
credit card payment. In contrast, foreign web hosting providers only accept
credit card payment for International customers. With the number of
credit card fraud on the rise, some web hosting providers even require
their International customers to fax in a copy of their credit card.
They need this information to perform verification in order to curb credit
card fraud. This fraud verification system is in place to protect consumers
such as yourself. In general, your web hosting account will be activated as soon
as the verification process is completed, which normally takes 2-3 days. Unless
you have credit card, otherwise, you will have trouble paying the foreign web
hosting provider.

Web Hosting Supports

Often than not, foreign web hosting providers are providing their service and support using English
as the communication medium. Apart from that, the 'Control Panel' website management system is
in English. If your mother tongue is not English or you can't communicate
well in English, then you will have communication
problem when dealing with foreign web hosting providers. Good command of English is vital when you perform website management or
when technical support is required if you choose to host with foreign web
hosting providers.

In addition, you may not be able to get immediate attention from the
foreign web hosting support due to geographical time difference. This is
especially true if the foreign web hosting do not provide 24 hours
support. Any serious web hosting issue that you need immediate solution
will have to wait till the 'office hour' of the foreign web hosting
support in order to get a response.

Depending upon your business needs, budget and hosting
requirements, the above few key consideration could be helpful to you
before choosing a foreign web hosting providers.

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thoroughly and give high marks to only the very best. We are independently owned and the opinions expressed here are our own.